Harry Cunliffe runs paid media across three prescription DTC brands: Skin + Me, Hair + Me and Renew + Me. Sixteen to eighteen channels, a paid team of three, and three heads of growth competing for the same two week creative sprint.
For years, success at Skin + Me meant sign-ups. Then the business moved to lifetime value against CAC, and it turned out the intro offer driving all that volume was selecting for people whose only qualification was that they could not turn down something cheap.
Harry talks through the day-zero signals they use to predict lifetime value, what happened when they tested a much higher intro price on Meta, and why adding qualification questions to the consultation flow costs more than it earns. On the creative side he covers what Andromeda is changing about the brief, why the persona matrix is hard to pull off at three brands and one design team, and the decision on one brand to stop accepting finished ads from creator partners in favour of raw footage they can cut themselves.
For DTC founders, growth marketers and anyone running subscription acquisition on paid social.
(00:00) Introduction
(01:01) Harry's role and the + Me universe
(04:35) 3 brands, 18 channels, and capital allocation
(08:16) Moving off sign-ups: the intro offer trap on Meta
(10:48) Measuring LTV: cohorts, channels and day-zero signals
(14:00) Qualification, whack-a-mole and the partner channels
(22:16) Resourcing 3 brands without dilution
(25:11) Growth priorities: Google, AI and lifetime value
(32:32) Andromeda and the persona matrix
(35:39) Creative that works: near misses, UGC and raw footage
(47:05) Consultation flow, offer testing and the LTV reframe
(56:31) Advice for growth marketers in 2026
(58:17) Fail 9 times, learn 9 things
Follow DTC Unboxed: https://linktr.ee/dtcunboxed
Follow Harry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cunliffeharry99/
Follow Ryan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurary/
","author_name":"Ryan Walton"}